The Ozarks at Small series continues next week at Crisis Brewing in Fayetteville. The monthly talks center on some aspect of the people, history and culture in the Ozarks. Wednesday evening, Kevin Kinder, journalist and instructor in the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Arkansas, will explore the evolution of live music in Fayetteville. He says his research began when he started a transition into teaching.
Kinder: I was thinking about sort of what that next project was, or what my summers would look like, and my wife and I like to do some traveling, but also I found some time there and I really thought that I needed to find something. And I remember reading that George's was getting ready to turn 100 because I had written some anniversary stories. One of the first stories I wrote when I moved here. So I moved to Fayetteville in June of 2006.
Kellams: Okay.
Kinder: And they celebrated a birthday in, they celebrated their birthday for whatever reason. Then they had an annual August showcase and I wrote a story about that. It was one of my first stories for the Northwest Arkansas Times when I moved, and I've just sort of known George's forever. My wife and I got, we had our wedding reception there.
Kellams: Yes.
Kinder: And so it's always been sort of part of my Fayetteville existence. And I remember seeing that it was closing in on 100. And I remember having a distinct moment where I said, someone should write a book about that club. Someone should do that. And then, maybe five minutes later, thinking, gosh, maybe that's me. So I've been sort of casually looking at that for a couple of years and really picked up the pace of that research in the last year.
Kellams: Easy to find the history of George's.
Kinder: No.
Kellams: I'm not surprised at that.
Kinder: No. There's some really great archival resources. The Shiloh Museum in Springdale has a lot of material on it, but a lot of what we know about it is oral history. We know that Bill Clinton loved to hang out at George's. And we know that, I teach in the journalism department, we know that Walter Lemke, who was a prominent professor at the University of Arkansas, photographed people inside the building. And one of the photos that we know of, George Pappas, who was the owner of George's, comes from him. But a lot of what we know is sort of history. Like, I remember that band who played there or oh yeah, they used to serve tamales in the 1960s. That's a, as we sort of pass that club to new owners and new attendees, those things carry along. But there's not a good newspaper article sort of announcing those transitions or announcing that. So it has been a little bit harder to find.
And it's been a live music club very prominently since the '80s. Before that, a little bit less. So there was some live music starting in the '50s, but those weren't, they weren't advertised really thoroughly. And if you think about how long that club's been there, a concert that happened in George's Majestic Lounge, which looks like the first one was there in 1957.
Kellams: Yeah.
Kinder: Was not announced. It was done by someone who was campaigning for student body president at the University of Arkansas. Fun fact, he went on to win.
Kellams: Yeah.
Kinder: Ray Thornton is his name. And Ray ended up being not only University of Arkansas student body president, but was president of the UofA System and also a congressman from Arkansas.
Kellams: And a musician.
Kinder: Right. When he was a student, he was barely a musician. He would say that he only performed to campaign.
Kellams: Okay.
Kinder: He was encouraged to perform by his friend. And his friend, we have this from, Ray's papers are located in the University of Arkansas Mullins Library special collection, and you can read some of his notes. And he was encouraged to perform by one of his really good friends. They said, you've got to be memorable, you've got to stick out, and this is how you're going to get ahead of your competitors in the campaign season. His friend who encouraged him to perform was Ronnie Hawkins, and they maintained a correspondence and friendship throughout their lives.
Kellams: Oh my gosh. And you think that was the first musical performance of George's? Or could have been?
Kinder: It likely is. And we know that from a couple of different ways. So Ray talked about being in that, also, Mary Hinton. So Mary was, there have only been four owners and I think this is fairly incredible, about 25 years apiece. There have only been four owners of George's Majestic Lounge. So Mary was the second owner. She, she and her husband owned it. But if you ask anybody who owned George's, it was Mary. It was her. It was her club.
She said that it was the first time that they offered live music there, and it was Ray Thornton, and his backing band was called the Seldom Fed Seven. And it was, he said it was a campaign event. She said later in an interview with the Northwest Arkansas Times that it was the first time she remembers having music there, and it's what inspired her to start having more music inside George's.
Kevin Kinder is a journalist and instructor in the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Arkansas, and he'll talk about the history of live music in Fayetteville at Crisis Brewing, also in Fayetteville, Wednesday night at 6 p.m. And he'll be covering more than just George's Majestic Lounge during his talk, including covering a city law that kept a lot of live music off of Dickson Street for decades. You see, until 1967, bars in Fayetteville could not have both alcohol and dancing. The Ozarks at Small series of talks, a monthly event at Crisis Brewing and part of the proceeds from beer sales during the event benefit KUAF.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
